Knowing that pandas are out in the early morning while it is still cool (they aren't stupid), Liz arranged for a driver to take us all out to see them. Our driver's wife works at the reserve and his family's house/land was taken to build the park 7 years ago and they are still waiting to be compensated by their new apartment nearby. They are hoping to be in this fall.
The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding started in 1987 with only six pandas and now has 146! It was a beautiful park with lovely lakes, ponds, gardens, green spaces and PANDAS. :)
Sue had to get this pic for her grandsons who love Kung Fu Panda
This one stood up and put his paw up to Sue's hand
Fun play structures for pandas to climb on
And pools to keep cool in
Who let the peacock in???
Me and a panda
This one even smiled for his picture :)
I'd never seen black swans before
Most of the adult pandas were just sleeping or eating. But the "toddlers" were much more fun to watch!
This one was really hamming it up for the camera
But sometimes even babies get tired and trees are a nice cool place to sleep...
Twins were born over the weekend. Twins are common but a mother in the wild will choose to raise the strongest of the two. Here at the research park they raise the other twin. The nursery was a pretty popular attraction, complete with angry guards to make sure you don't stop in front of the incubator too long.
newborn pandas aren't very cute
I don't know how old this little one was but I just felt so sorry for him laying on a bare floor all by himself... :(
They also have a red panda breeding program.
By this time it was getting both hot and crowded, so we popped into the air conditioned theater to watch their informational movie about giant panda breeding. Very interesting but the best part was the reaction of middle school boys to panda mating... LOL
Liz took us to the Tibetan part of town near their office for lunch. We ate at a Western restaurant called Leann's. It was started by a Mennonite couple. Liz suggested we get salads while we could. I had a tossed spinach salad and a fresh mango smoothie. Sue and I also took home apple fritters for dessert.
the Tibetan restaurant next to Leann's
On the way to the office, we stopped by a shop called Blue Sheep run by a British pediatrician. She sells things made by local minority women and all the proceeds go back to their communities. I bought a lot of stuff there.
We also saw some other sights on the way...
While at the office we met the staff and college student volunteers that would be joining us at the English camp in Jin Yang and got our orientation from Joel on Chinese culture and other important stuff.
They let us ride the subway back to the hotel so we could get ready to go out to dinner. We did just fine. I wanted to go back to this Wal Mart but never got the chance... :(
Apparently the restaurant next to our hotel was getting ready for dinner, too...
..
Dinner was our chance to meet Charlie, the 13-year-old we brought the homeschool textbooks for. We also got to meet his parents and his swim coach. Charlie is blessed with amazing parents who love him and have decided to homeschool him. Liz has been tutoring him in English for two to three years (you'd think he'd been speaking it his whole life), he is also learning Japanese (from his swim coach), swims competitively and plays on a homeschool basketball team. His swim coach lived in Japan for 24 years as a Olympic coach and now also leads mountain climbing expeditions to Everest and other peaks.
We ate at Peter's Tex Mex, an American-style restaurant started by a Sichuan-native chef who was trained by the American woman who started the Grandma's Kitchen chain. It seemed kind of funny to eat tacos in China...
It was a bit tricky to find a cab back. After about 15 minutes, I uttered a quick prayer. About 3 minutes later, we got one. I guess I should have done that sooner... :)
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